Bias, Prejudices, and Oppression

For this blog post, I asked to tell of an incident where I or someone else were the victim of prejudice, bias, or oppression. Well for this blog I decided to go with a character from a movie called Radio. In this particular movie, a young black man with developmental issues was oppressed by students and individuals from the community. This went on til one of the coaches decided to befriend Radio. The coach took an interest in Radio and tried to include Radio in the everyday events of the school and community. He fought for radio to be included in the school setting and in the community. This coach treated Radio with respect, even as the others tried to ridicule and demean radio by calling him names such as retard. However, in the end Radio became a valued member of the community and won over the students as he learned to function as a productive member of society.

In this movie, the way that Radio was treated by others violated his human rights. He was not treated with equity as he was disregarded and constantly taunted by others because of is disability. He was not given the same educational rights as others and this was obvious because he was not allowed at first to attend the school with the normal children. He was stereotyped by teachers, community, and the students. This was evident as the principle made remarks about Radio possibly harming the other students. I can remember watching this movie for the first time, I felt bad for the way that Radio was treated by members of the football team as they trapped in the storage and threw footballs at the door. This really frightened Radio and he felt unsafe. I felt feelings of empathy and sadness for the way that he was treated. I also felt sad and sorry for the teens that did this to him, because ignorance in my eyes is just like a disability. This whole situation began to change for Radio as he was befriended by the coach. The coach worked hard to help the boys treat Radio with kindness and actually at the end the ringleader of the football incident that occurred earlier in the movie also befriended Radio. He began to see that Radio was really a cool person. He just needed people to see pass his disability.